Idea how to change crits and mates

Mates are kind of bullshit. When your opponent builds their list around taking lots of symbionts and Mates, it can just be nearly impossible to chew through that many wounds. I'd personally say that they should work exactly the same but you only ignore one hit, your choice. That makes them effective but doesn't mean you can wham a Sukeul with two Missile Launcher hits and oops does nothing and he's dropped into full cover, nice effort. It means weight of fire weapons are notably effective vs Tohaa, which is a nice little tactical element, and also is at odds with weapons that have Fire ammo types (and are invariably of low Burst).

Quite honestly it surprises me that's not what it already is, because they are very powerful. Yes you pay for them, but I believe it's on a profile with CoC yes?

 

To be honest. Crits balance the system and create epic / cinematic moments.

You most often don't remember Chess-like matches, but always that FtF which ended with a Crit for you or against you. Don't change it! For example, my Intruder became unconscious in a tournament to a Crit first (on 1 for the enemy), I healed him and then he died to two Crits (again on 1 for my enemy). This match was cursed, but I will always remember it.

Like we say in Germany: Crits - don't touch it, sonst klatscht it! :D

 

hes taking the piss, he does that.

As to crits, I've seen the "Arm0" quick fix multiple times and I think its unworkable in the current game. Seriously the idea that a crit is far more lethal to a Jotum than say a foxtrot is pretty silly all up, especially given how much the Jotum is paying for that ARM relative to the foxtrot

 

the problem is on units like Nikouls, sukuels (active and ML) and Gao Raels, that can be set up to win a significant number of ARO fights, then can ignore the first one they lose adding substantially to that initial risk to anything that has to attack them, then you have a whole host of other options, like staying up with your symbio trooper or gutsing out of LOF if you have forced the opponent to expend sufficient orders for your goals.

So you end up with
A 2 wound trooper
Has good odds of winning fights in ARO making every order spent a risk
Has a mate so that the first order you Fight it in is unapplicable if you win (not if you lose), multiplying the above situation
Can choose to fail guts or continue fighting after using the mate, before taking any damage
If it stays fighting can make the same choice to conserve resources after taking the next wound
Rarely has an appreciable stat/skill/equipment drop after it finally takes that wound.

And all this is provided for 0.25 SWC (0.5 for two mates) on a link member with LSG and Chain of command for less than 30 pts.
Not the least because the Bombs that are already severely lackluster do not have the CoC.

 

I don't think you can drop into cover after using a Symbiomate, because using them is like saying "nothing happened". And, If nothing happened, there is no guts roll, not going into cover...

 

...

If you can't then I have some heads to twist off, I have had that done to be, and raged profusely about it!

I still think it's too powerful though. You can get triple hacked, glued, shot with seventeen missile launchers and stabbed by Achilles or some shit and go NOPE IM FINE LOL

 

You can, you can choose to fail your guts after expending them in an order, its stupid.


EDIT: And now, looking into it a lot more, im not so sure you can choose to guts after using symbio mates. Its not in the FAQ

 

It says on the wiki that you avoid having to make a guts roll. Does that mean you can choose to make one? And therefore choose to fail it?

I would probably say no but then I hate the fucking things so I'm biased haha

 

Just make crits take out the mate in one go so it can't block other hits from the same attack. As in.. mate blocks all hits, unless a crit is rolled, in which case it just blocks the crit.

 

People are unsure of avoiding the roll means that you can choose to ignore it, or that guts roll does not occur and so you cannot fail it. (I'm in the second group)

 

Isn't there an interpretation that Guts roll was intended to be made if a model survives an attack rather than literally passes a save?

Or, rather, someone claimed it was CB's intention.

 

Suggestion: just drop the 'mates and Guts Roll line of thinking for now - it's an outstanding rules issue that hasn't been resolved after months of being an active thread on old forums.

 

I didn't realize this. I'll add it to the ignored thread!

 

While I don't think Mates are as OP as most people think they are, they could be changed. Here's my suggestion:
- Still not Fire-Sensitive (they were introduced mostly to help Tohaa against Fire weapons)
- Replace hit ignore with 2 extra wounds that don't have any ARM or BTS (meaning you don't even get the roll).
- Crits one-shot the Mate and the bearer auto-fails the Guts roll. No effect on the bearer while Mate is active.

Basically, we would still have some extra protection, but it will be less OP as we can only ignore up to 2 hits and crits will instantly remove the mate and force the user to take cover.

 

I think the idea that some models can only be killed with crits is really bad game design personally. It's my only design-related gripe with the game so far.

The problem is you're basically forcing players to rely on the swingiest mechanic in the entire game, and it removes the entire idea of stacking mods against an enemy. Instead you're just throwing shit at it expecting a result -- it removes strategy from the game .

I think it also hinges on the fact that the first few points of armor are very overcosted but the last few are incredibly undercosted. Think about it: A unit with 7 armor is about twice as likely to be wounded by a combi rifle than a unit with 10 armor, but a unit with 1 armor is 4x more likely to be wounded by a combi rifle than the 10 armor unit. When you look at it in terms of likelihood to get a wound, armor gets stronger and stronger with every point (eventually the efficiency doubles per point against different DAM values.)

 

Name 1 model tjat cant be killed without a crit outside of the symbiomated tohaa.

Because even the jotum cam and does die to rifles on occassion

 

Arm also costs more the more you have.

If anything its overcosted at higher values

 

See, you've already moved the goalposts. Symbiomates are bad design for that reason.

And yeah sure, a Jotum *can* die to a Chain Rifle, but if you chain rifled it 10 times, the odds of you doing 3 wounds is something like 14% (assuming my math is right, you're welcome to check it) with ARM10 against DAM13. Those 1) aren't odds that any player should take, and 2) aren't odds to say that chain rifles are viable against high armor targets.

As a side note, people really undervalue how strong total immunity is on models with high enough armor.

 

Sorry that comment was to storms statement that there are already models unkillable in the game without crits.

Which is obviously incorrect outside of mates

Edit: as to the jotum its pretty horrible choice on a players part to aftack it with dam13 normal ammo. There are already a plethora of weapons that threaten it not to mention existential threats like hacking em and adhls.

Fact is arm doesnt make the jotum immune to all but crits, but mates make tohaa immune to all but crits for at least 1 order and thats a problem which i think we agree on